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MARION HARLAND^ 



Z.98 & 500 S^OA^lTAr. 



1S67. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in tie year 1866, hy 

SHELDON & Co., 

In tie Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the 

Southern District of New York. 



Stereotyped hy Smith & McDougal, 84 Beckman St. 



SALITAT6IY. 



N a Christmas Eve, many years ago, before 
I had learned to accept Life as it is, — as 
it must ever be while Man needs the dis- 
cipline of reverses, and while the ways of 
God are known but to Himself,— a checquered scene, 
always; often grey and lowering; sometimes black 
with midnight and chHl with storm— on a certain 
Christmas Eve, then, when I was young, unreason- 
able and rebelHous, I took a long, lonely walk into 
the country. The afternoon suited my temper, and 
both were gloomy. Low heavens of clouded steel that 
yet seemed, now and then, to shiver with the stiU, 
biting air, and with each shudder, to let down a few 
wandering flakes of snow ; a bleak landscape of com- 
mons, blasted by invisible frost ; of sterile hiUs, that 
must have been stony and bare in the sunniest spring- 
time -and for a horizon, a girdle of leafless woods, 
stretching up motionless boughs against the pitHess 
sky; in the hollow formed by the amphitheatre of 
hills', an artificial pond-too intensely tame in form 



VI SALUTATORY. 

and surroundings to deserve the name of lake, or be 
mistaken for aught but what it was, viz., a pool dug 
and filled with a single eye to the j)roduction of ice 
for the next summer's use, — this was the picture that 
greeted my outlooking sight. Within was the dull, icy 
calm of stoical misanthropy ; distrust of my fellows, 
which stubbornly refused to ask of heavenly wisdom the 
solution of the human enigma that had baffled, in dis- 
gusting me. 

Into the midst of this sunless mood came a surprise. 
Eight before me, in my steady but aimless track across 
the waste, was a clump of dwarf trees, poor, puny things 
that must have had a hard coming-up. I marvelled, in 
surveying them, that the germs from which they had 
struggled had had the courage to sprout in such a bar- 
ren spot. In the centre of the coppice, head and shoul- 
ders above his fellows, arose a holly sapHng, brave with 
leaves of glossy green and scarlet berries. The only 
smile in the drear expanse, it was in itself a whole foun- 
tain of cheer. The soil about the trunk might be frozen 
to stone-like hardness, but below, the great heart of 
Mother Earth pulsed warmly still ; throwing up, at 
each beat, sap into the hardy frame of her winter-child ; 
strength to the lusty limbs ; verdiure to the spiky leaves ; 
blushes to the coral beads. And while I looked, a bevy 
of brown-coated plump-breasted snow-birds whirled 
noisily across the plain, and aHghted, with much twit- 
tering and a deal of happy, useless fluttering, among the 
inviting branches. 



SALUTATORY. 



I had conned my lesson, and I turned my face home- 
wards with changed spirits and a changed purpose. As 
one measure towards the fulfilment of the latter, I send 
this Christmas greeting into the waste we know as the 
common Hfe of this working-day world. We make it too 
common, dear reader. We choose for ourselves a path 
across a dead level, and then perversely adapt our feel- 
ings to what we are pleased to call our circumstances. 
I pray you, for this one holiday season, learn with me 
of my holly-tree. Seek out present brightness, and in it 
read the promise of happy days to come. Sigh not that 

— "All hope of Spring-time 
Has perished with the year," 

while the same Love that nourishes the tiny greenling 
of the forest into brightness and beauty, despite wintry 
blast and wintry sleet, wiU keep ahve in your heart, if 
not the tender shoots of youthful joys, the stronger, 
braver, worthier growth of love for your brother man ; 
helpful charity for all things weak and lowly and sor- 
rowing ; hope and faith in the wise and tender Father 

of us alL 

MAEION HARLAND. 



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ES. DKYDEN was cross! 

She would have been at a loss to specify 
what especial grounds she had for the dis- 
content that possessed her on this partic- 
ular night. If interrogated, she would probably have 
returned an evasive reply to the effect that it was none 
of the questioner's business how she felt or looked, so 
long as she did not obtrude her unhappiness upon 
other people. Everybody had his and her own troubles 
with which others had no right to intermeddle. She 
was responsible to no one for her behavior ; nobody 
should hinder her from being low-spirited, if she 
pleased to be so. She was out of humor with the 
whole world, herself included. The children were 
troublesome ; the servants heedless ; her husband indif- 
ferent to her grievances — and it was Christmas eve. 

"Eeally," she said, peevishly, at tea-time, "one would 
suppose that Christmas came but once in a century, 



12 NETTIE'S PRATER. 

instead of once a year ! Everybody is as crazy to- 
night as if there were never to be another 25th of 
December." 

"By the way," said her husband, looking up from 
his paper, " I suppose you have baked some mince- 
pies and fried some dough-nuts — haven't you?" 

" I have mince-pies and turkey for to-morrow !" was 
the curt reply. "I knew you would not be satisfied 
unless you had as good a dinner as your neighbors. 
But as for dough-nuts — they are oily, rank, indiges- 
tible abominations, fit only for an ostrich's stomach, 
and one doesn't get the smell of the hot fat out of 
the house in two weeks after they have been cooked. 
I never mean to make another while I live." 

Two pairs of sorrowful eyes stole a glance of mutual 
pity at one another, when this announcement was made; 
two pairs of cherry lips took a piteous curl, for a sec- 
ond ; two curly heads bent lower over the plates set 
before their owners. 

Not that there was any dearth of sweet things in the 
Dryden larder, or that Ally and Nettie, the proprietors 
of the eyes, lips, and heads aforesaid, were gorma,ndiz- 
ers. But this matter of frying doughnuts was great 
fun to them, as it is to most other small people who 
have ever been permitted to stand by and see the 



NETTIE'S PRATER. 13 

rings, leaves, birds, circles, triangles, and tlie endless 
variety of nondescript figures leave the kneading-board 
pale, flat surfaces of soft dougb, and, upon being thrown 
into the bubbling fat, sinking, like leaden shapes, with 
a tremendous splutter and "fizz," arise slowly and ma- 
jestically to the top of the caldron, as IMr. "Weller has 
it, "swelling wisibly" before the enraptured eye into 
pu%, crisp, toothsome morsels, fit, in the estimation 
of the juvenile partakers thereof, for a queen's luncheon. 
Last year, the brother and sister had spent Christmas 
week with an aunt in another town. This lady being 
the indulgent mamma of half a dozen boys and girls, 
enjoyed nothing so much as making them meriy and 
happy. The six days passed in her abode lived in the 
memoiy of nephew and niece as a dream of Paradis- 
aical dehght. But, this season, the holidays were to 
be kept at home, and the prospect was, to say the 
least, not eminently flattering. 

. Mr and Mrs. Dryden were estimable people in their 
way, but they had studied to render themselves in- 
tensely and purely matter-of-fact. They prided them- 
selves secretly upon gTOwing wiser and more practical 
— ^less poetical — each revolving cycle. Each year, hfe 
assumed a more positive and less romantic aspect ; 
their own duties seemed more momentous and imper- 



14 NETTIE'S PRAYER. 

ative ; the things which others call recreation and inno- 
cent amusements were puerile and unworthy. Mi*. Dry- 
den was making money ; Mrs. Dryden was a notable 
housekeeper, and, so far as the physical needs of the 
children were concerned, a careful mother. Four little 
ones, three boys and a girl, claimed her love and 
maternal offices. Allison, the eldest, was eight years 
old ; Nettie, six ; and a pair of twin babies were in 
their third winter. The mother's hands were certainly 
full, however admirable might be her faculty of accom- 
plishing with speed the work set for her to do. It 
was not surprising that she should sometimes wear a 
haggard, anxious look, or that, now and then, she 
should be, as she now expressed it, "worried out of 
her senses." 

"I don't see, for my part," she broke forth, impa- 
tiently, presently, "how people find time or have the 
heart to frolic and observe holidays and the like friv- 
olous carryings-on ! With me, it is work, work, work ! 
from morning until night, and from one year's end to 
another. It frets me to see grown-up men and women, 
who ought to know something about the cares and 
solemn responsibilities of life, acting like siUy children. 
What is Chi-istmas more than any other time — when 
one takes a sober, common-sense view of the matter?" 



NETTIES PRAYER. 15 

"That is what nobody does in this age of nonsense 
and dissipation," returned her husband. " I don't know 
what the world is coming to!" 

"Wasn't our Saviour born on Christmas-day, Mam- 
ma?" asked Nettie's timid voice. 

"That is not certain, by any means, child. And if 
it were true, there is all the more scandal in making 
a frohc of it. If there were to be prayer-meetings 
held all over the world to celebrate the event, it would 
be far more appropriate." 

The polysyllable staggered Nettie a Httle, but she 
retained sufficient courage to reply : " Our teacher told 
us, last Sabbath, that everybody ought to be very happy 
upon the Saviour's birthday." 

Before Mrs. Dryden could answer, Ally put in his 
oar. 

" Mamma ! why doesn't Santa Claus ever come down 
our chimney?" 

"There is no such creature, Allison! You are too 
old to beheve in that ridiculous fable." 

"But, Mamma, he came to Aunt Mary's last year!" 
cried both children, in a breath. 

" And we all hung up our stockings in the parlor I" 
added Nettie. 

"And Aunt Mary let the fire go down on purpose, 



16 NETTIE'S PRATER. 

SO that the old chap might not be scorched!" shouted 
Ally, excitedly. "We wanted her to have the chimney 
swept, but she said he wouldn't mind a little dirt." 
" For you know — 

'His clothes were all tamislied with ashes and soot!'" 

quoted Nettie, " and yet he was in a good humor 

— ' and filled all the stockings' " — 

" ' Then turned with a jerk, 
And laying his finger alongside his nose, 
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!'" 

chanted Ally. " Oh ! what times we had repeating that, 
after we went to bed that night. 

'Hie droU little mouth was drawn up like a bow. 
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow. 
He had a broad face and a little round — ' " 

" You children will be the death of me !" cried Mrs. 
Dryden, distractedly, putting her hands to her ears. 
"I shall certainly never let you spend another Christ- 
mas at your Aunt Mary's ! Your heads were so crammed 
with nonsense last year, that I am afraid you will 
never get rid of it. Finish your suppers and be off 



NETTIE' SPKAYER. 17 

to bed ! You are as Cliristmas-mad as if you had 
never been trained to more sensible things !" 

" I can not imagine," said Mr. Dryden, severely, 
"how they have contrived to remember the senseless 
doggerel your sister was so injudicious as to teach 
them." 

" That is the depravity of human nature !" sighed 
the wife. 

Very sober little faces were uplifted to father and 
mother for a "good-night" kiss, and very slow foot- 
steps went up the stairs to the chamber which the 
brother and sister shared in common. There was a 
pathos in the sound, so unlike was it to the brisk 
patter of other small feet upon other floors and stair- 
cases on that jubilee eve. 

The father, albeit he was not an imaginative man, 
noticed this, and went off to the parlor with a pained 
and yearning heart — saddened, he knew not by what 
— ^longing for something he could not name. The chil- 
dren had interrupted his evening reading, at supper, 
by their chatter, and he bestowed himself in his arm- 
chair by the centre-table, to finish the perusal of his 
newspaper. His seat was comfortable ; the light clear 
and soft; the evening news interesting; the room still; 
yet he could not fix his mind upon his occupation. 



18 NETTIE'S PRATER. 

Through the quiet apartment came and went the echoes 
of the four Httle feet, in slow dejection, going on up 
to the repose that was to be visited by no happy 
dreams of the glories of Christmas morning. He saw, 
between him and the printed column, the sadly-serious 
countenances, that were, by this time, laid upon their 
pillows. He wondered if the pair would cry them- 
selves to sleep. He purposely waxed angry with his 
sister-in-law for putting these silly notions into the 
children's heads. They were contented enough until 
that unfortunate visit. Now, there was no telling where 
this mischief would stop. It was too provoking to 
have two such fine natures soured by repinings and 
foolish longings ; two minds so intelligent filled with 
superstitious fancies. Yes ! they were fine children ! 
if he did say it — and dutiful as handsome and intel- 
ligent. His wife had an excellent method of discipline, 
and deserved much credit for her success in training 
her offspring. She was a good woman — industrious 
and conscientious — ^but he could have wished that her 
spirits were more equable. He did not relish the idea 
that his blooming Nettie might, one day, become a 
toil-worn, pains-taking wife and mother ; her smooth 
forehead be ploughed in two deep furrows, Hke those 
that crossed her mother's, from temple to temple ; her 



NETTIE'S PEAYEE. 19 

pouting lips grow colorless and drawn down at the 
corners ; her bird-like voice sharpen into the shrill 
peevishness of the tones that had ordered the bau-ns 
off to bed. He would like to keep life fresh and 
bright for his darling so long as he could. She would 
find out, soon enough, what a dry, dusty, detestable 
cheat the world was. If he might have his wish, she 
should be a child always ; a merry, laughing, singing 
fairy, to gladden his old age ; a simple-hearted, trust- 
ing child, in whose love and purity he could find 
refreshment, when disheartened by the faithlessness of 
his fellow-men. She was very fond of him— grave and 
undemonstrative as he was. With the unei-ring per- 
ception of childhood, she had discovered that she was 
his favorite, and repaid his partiality in the coin he 
liked best. The sound of his latch-key in the door 
was the signal, noon and night, for her to bound down 
stairs to meet him ; to kiss him, and offer, ia her 
pretty, womanly way, to reheve him of his overcoat ; 
to hang up his hat and bring him his slippers. Such 
nimble feet as hers were! BHthe, willing httle feet, 
how they twinkled to and fro, to perform whatever 
errands he would suffer her to undertake for his com- 
fort ! Merry, dancing little feet ! 

But the echoes persisted in contradicting his rec- 



20 NETTIE'S PRATER. 

ollection of their lively music. Up and down — sad 
and slow — they wandered ; never drowned for a mo- 
ment, while their monotonous beat was rendered more 
mournful by the hurried, ceaseless tramp of pleasure- 
seekers upon the pavement without. He wished that 
he had spoken a kindly word to the downcast inno- 
cents, instead of the silent salute he had vouchsafed 
to their mutely-oflfered lips. Perhaps they were not 
asleep yet ! His wife was still with the twins, in the 
bedroom overhead, for he heard her walking about 
the floor, preparing, as he knew, to leave them for the 
night. He could shp up noiselessly to the small cham- 
ber adjoining, and solace his uneasy spirit by a loving 
." good-night," that should diy Nettie's eyes, if they 
were wet, and comfort Ally's disappointed soul, while 
the partner of his bosom would be none the wiser 
for it. 

Mrs. Dryden did not allow the attendance of a nui*- 
sery-maid to her elder children in the evening. For 
more than a year they had undressed themselves and 
retired to their respective cots, without noise or com- 
plaint, leaving nothing for mother or servant to do, 
but to look in, a few minutes later, and extinguish 
the gas. This had been done by Ellen, the chamber- 
maid, before she went down to her own tea : but 



NETTIE'S PRAYER. 21 

the moonlight, streaming through the window-curtain, 
showed to the father, as he stood without the partly- 
open door, the two white beds in opposite corners 
of the room, and the forms that ought to have been 
snugly laid under the blankets. Instead of this, they 
were raised upon their elbows to a half-sitting pos- 
ture, and the low hum of their earnest voices arrestel 
the spectator upon the threshold. 

" I wonder if Papa and Mamma ever were a little 
boy and giii !" said Master -illy, in a doleful key. 
" If they were, I guess they have forgotten how they 
used to feel. I could have cried right out, to-day, 
at school, when the boys were all talking about Christ- 
mas gifts and what they expected to get. You ought 
to have seen them stare at me when they asked me 
what I thought I should have, and I said that we 
didn't keep Christmas at our house, and that I had 
never hung up my stockings but once, and that was 
when I was at my aunt's ! And one boy asked me 
if my father and mother were dead. And when I 
said 'No,' another fellow called out, as rude as could 
be — ' I guess they don't care much about you !' I tell 
you, Nettie, it makes a fellow feel real bad!" 

" I know it !" said the miniature woman, tenderly. 
" But, Ally, dear. Papa and Mamma do love us ! Only 



22 NETTIE'S PRAYER. 

they don't know how much we think of Christmas, 
and how children love to hang up their stockings, and 
all that. But that was a very naughty boy that told 
you they didn't care for you. Papa works ever so 
hard to get clothes and food for us, so Mamma says ; 
and Mamma sews for us, and takes care of us when 
we are sick, and — and — a great many other kind 
things." 

" Maybe so ; but she was awful cross to-night, and 
scolded like every thing, just for nothing at all, and 
I am very miserable ! Just hear the boys shouting 
out-doors, and the people laughing and talking, as 
they go along! It's downi"ight mean in them, when 
they might know that there isn't to be any Christmas 
in our house. I wish they would be still ! I wish I 
was dead!" 

" Ally, Ally, that is wicked !" expostidated the gentle 
tones of the sister. 

" I don't care ! where is the sense of hving, if a 
fellow is never to have any fun? "Where is the use 
of being good? If I was the wickedest boy in town, 
I could not be treated worse than I am now. How 
I hate this stupid old house ! ^\Tien I am a man, 
and have boys and girls of my own, I mean that 
Santa Claus shall come every week and bring them 



NETTIE'S PEAYEE. 23 

— oh, such lots of nice things ! and you shall Hve 
with me, Nettie, and we wiU fry doughnuts and have 
New Year's cake every day !" 

" Ally !" said Nettie, thoughtfully, " do you suppose 
there is such a man as Santa Claus? Mamma says 
there isn't !" 

" I know there is !" returned the boy, confidently. 
"But he doesn't come to a house unless the father 
and mother of the children that live there send him 
an invitation. One of the big boys told me so, to-day. 
And good fathers and mothers always tell him what 
to bring." 

" I was just thinking," resumed Nettie's Kqiiid treble, 
" if Our Heavenly Father knew how very badly we 
wanted to have a Christmas, whether He wouldn't 
send him to us. Suppose I pray to Him and teU 
Him all about it !" 

" You may try it !" was the conclusion of the embryo 
skeptic. "But I don't beheve it will do any good." 

In a trice, Nettie had slipped to the floor, and was 
fumbhng among a heap of clothes laid upon a chaii'. 
]VIr. Dryden watched her curiously. 

"Now, Ally I" he heard her say, presently, "Here 
are the clean stockings that Ellen got out for us to 
put on to-morrow. Mamma wouldn't Hke it if we 



24 NETTIE'S PRAYER. 

hung them up ourselves, so I will just lay them on 
the foot of the bed. If Santa Glaus should come, 
maybe he can pin them up for us." 

Then, sinking to her knees, she put her hands to- 
gether and raised her pure face — angelic in the father's 
sight — as the moonbeams revealed its expression of 
meek devotion. 

" Our Father who art in Heaven ! please make us 
good and happy, and let us have a merry Christmas. 
If there is any Santa Glaus, please let him come to 
our house to-night, for he has never been here in aU 
our Hves, and this makes us very sorry. Bless dear 
Papa and Mamma, and don't let us think hard of 
them, or say naughty things about them, only because 
they don't know how little children feel. Amen !" 

Ally gave a grunt that might mean acquiescence, 
or doubt, when his sister arose and leaned over to kiss 
him ; but Mr. Dryden could play the eavesdropper no 
longer. 

Feeling that he must inevitably discover himself if 
he remained another minute in his present position, 
he hurried down-stairs and into the parlor, where he 
behaved more like a crazy man than the sober, self- 
possessed head of a staid and decent household. Kick- 
ing off his slippers, he thrust his feet violently into 



NETTIE'S PKAYER. 25 

his boots, stamping, with unnecessary force, to get these 
fairly on ; blew his nose repeatedly and loudly, after- 
wards passing his handkerchief over his eyes, as though 
the sudden catarrh from which he appeared to be suf- 
fering had affected them also. Going into the hall, 
he snatched his greatcoat from the rack and put it 
on — still in desperate haste, pulled his hat over his 
brows, and rushed into the street. 

He found himself plunged directly into a rapid, buzz- 
ing crowd. Every step was quick and light; every 
face wore a smile, and the air was full of the pleasant 
confusion of happy voices. Bless the children ! how 
they ran under his feet, and trod upon his toes, and 
kicked against his heels, and jostled him on the right 
and on the left ! And not one of them was empty- 
handed. Parcels of all sizes, shapes, and descriptions, 
filled small fingers ; were hugged by small arms ; laid 
upon small shoulders and slung upon small backs. 
Brown paper bundles ; bundles tied in frailer white 
paper, which, bursting, showed the wheel of a toy- 
wagon, or the head of a toy-horse, or the arm of a 
doll ; funnel-shaped bundles, fresh from the hands of 
the confectioner ; bundles, wrapped hastily ia news- 
paper by an economical shopkeeper, or one whose 
stock of wi-apping material had proved inadequate to 



2b NETTIE'S PKAYEE. 

the rush of custom ; boxes, square, oblong, and many- 
sided ; mimic guns and drums, with gayly-paiuted sides, 
upon whose heads the dehghted owners could not re- 
frain from beating stirring Christmas marches, as they 
carried them home ; here and there a huge hobby- 
horse, with dilated eye and streaming mane, borne 
aloft by the stalwart porter of some toy warehouse ; 
these were but a few features in the pageant that 
streamed jDast Mr. Dryden — a varied and joyous tor- 
rent of life. He caught the infection of this atmos- 
phere of gladness before he had gone a dozen yards. 
He had come forth with the intention of purchasing 
something with which to make his children happy ; 
to answer Nettie's prayer so far as lay in his power. 
Awakened conscience and remorseful affection for those 
he felt he had wronged, had driven him on to the 
duty of making restitution. He soon began to under- 
stand that there might be enjoyment, active and new, 
in the task. 

" How I wish I had brought them with me !" he 
said to himself, as he felt his features relax into a 
smile at sight of the general hilarity. "It was hard 
to send them to bed so early on Christmas eve. But, 
what would their mother have said if I had asked her 
permission to take them out after dark?" 



NETTIE'S PRAYER. 27 

He stayed his rapid progress, as another query pre- 
sented itself. What would this very prudent and sedate 
help-meet say and think of another bold innovation 
upon established rules, to wit, this expedition and its 
probable results? How should he meet the stare of 
mingled astonishment and rebuke that would rest upon 
his freight of "useless" playthings, upon his return 
home ? She disapproved of toys, except when great 
moderation was displayed in their bestowal. Nettie 
had but one doll in the world, and, careful as she 
was of this treasure, her loving arts could not conceal 
the ravages of time ; said manikin having been Aunt 
Mary's gift to her niece, upon her third birthday. Ally 
had never owned a hobby-horse. His mother had a 
di-ead of "rough jplays." Our hero was quite aware 
that on this occasion he was not inclined to modera- 
tion. He would cheerfully have bought the entii-e con- 
tents of any one of the illuminated windows whose 
splendors drew around them a swarm of admiring 
juveniles, as a hive of honey would tempt hungiy 
bees. The difficulty was to know what would best 
please the unsuspecting twain at home. 

" This sort of thing is not in my line !" he sohloquized. 
" I suppose there is a difference between gu-ls' and boys' 
playthings. I have it! These people ought to know 



28 



NETTIE'S PRATER. 



their business ! I will state my dilemma, and take 
whatever they advise." 

Thus resolving, he entered the largest and most bril- 
liant toy emporium he had yet seen, and making his 
way, with considerable labor, through the throng of 
eager buyers, presented himself at the counter. Luck- 
ily, the saleswoman nearest him had just dismissed a 
customer, and turned to him with an engaging smile. 
She looked tired — as well she might, poor thing ! hav- 
ing been on her feet for twelve hours, and hard at 
work all the time — ^but it was not in a kind-hearted 
tradeswoman's nature to be cross on Christmas eve. 

" What can I show you, sir ?" she asked, politely. 

" That is what you must tell me, madam ! I want 
some toys for my little girl, aged six, and my boy, 
who is two years older. If you can inform me what 
will suit them, you will oblige me, and please them." 

His fluent, pleasant speech amazed himseK. Cer- 
tainly, the witchery of the festal eve was working upon 
him fast. 

" Has your daughter a tea or dinner set ?" inquired 
the shop-woman, taking down two wooden boxes ; pull- 
ing back the sliding tops, and rummaging among the 
shred paper used for packing the fragile contents. 
"Here is something very handsome." 



NETTIE'S PRATER. 29 

" Just the thing !" ejaculated the father, upou behold- 
ing the wee tureen ; covered and shallow dishes, gravy- 
boat, saltcellars, casters, and a dozen plates, white, with 
a rim of gold ; all so graceful in design, so dainty in 
material, as to ehcit his unqualified admiration. Al- 
ready he saw, in imagination, Nettie's eyes gHsten at 
sight of them; her deft fingers arranging them — ^^ cun- 
ning little housewife that she was. 

" Then you don't care for the tea-set ?" making a 
movement to close the box. 

"I — don't — know!" hesitatingly. "I suppose she 
will want to spread a supper and breakfast table, as 
well as play dinner, won't she?" 

" If she has not cups and saucers already, I would 
certainly recommend you to take these," and the artful 
tempter made a tea-tray of the hd of the case, setting 
out the service so attractively, that her inexperienced 
customer speedily regarded the second array of china 
as a " must have." 

" Now, perhaps, you wiU look at a table !" pursued 
the woman, leading the way to the back of the store. 
""We have a novelty in that line — an extension- table." 

" Of course ! how stupid in me not to remember 
that the china would be useless unless she had some- 
thing upon which to arrange it !" 



dO NETTIE'S PRAYER. 

Mr. Dryden had entered thorouglily into the spirit 
of the enterprise, and was highly diverted at his over- 
sight ; very grateful to her who had corrected his 
blunder. The table was a neat affair, with turned legs 
and polished top, and constructed, as had been said, 
upon the extension princiiDle. Mr. Dryden took it on 
the spot. 

" Chairs ?" he said, interrogatively. 

It was now the lady's turn to be ashamed of her 
forgetfulness. Half a dozen cane-seat chairs were added 
to the pile, which betokened Mr. Dryden to be a valu- 
able customer. Then followed a case of knives, a knife- 
box, and an assortment of silver (?) ware, and both 
parties came to a momentary halt. The gentleman 
recovered himself first. 

" Now, a doU — for which she can keep house !" 

" "Wax finish, porcelain, biscuit, or rubber ?" said the 
other, glibly. " Dressed, or undressed ?" 

"Dressed — I suppose, since to-morrow is so near. 
As to the rest, I am no judge. But I want the pretti- 
est doU in the estabhshment." 

His experience in this species of merchandise was so 
limited that he might well be excused for starting at 
the wonderfully life-hke lady paraded for his inspee 
tion. Her hair waved in natural ringlets ; she rolled 



NETTIE'S PRATER. 31 

Ler eyes, as the shop woman moved her to and fro. 
She was dressed in the height of the mode — neither 
gloves, nor hat, nor parasol being wanting to complete 
her toilet ; and when, in obedience to a dexterous pull 
of a wire upon her left side, she squeaked " Mamma !' 
and, responding to a similar twitch of the correspond- 
ing muscle under the right arm, she cried " Papa !" 
Mr. Dryden was overwhelmed. 

"What idll toy makers do next?" he articulated. 

" The art of manufacturing dolls is carried to great 
perfection," quietly replied the woman. "Did you say 
that you would take this, sir?" 

Take it ! what could have bribed him to forego the 
treat of witnessing Nettie's rapture in the survey of 
this resplendent and accomplished demoiselle? 

"We have some very pretty doll-carriages, in which 
the lady can take the au'," was the next attack, and 
Mr. Dryden fell a wilhng sacrifice to this new snare. 

In very compassion for her victim, the woman di- 
rected his thoughts to the boy's gifts. A velocipede; 
a wheelbarrow, with spade, rake, and hoe ; a set of 
jackstraws, for \vinter evenings ; a football and a sled 
made up the complement that was to transport the 
semi-infidel to the seventh heaven of ecstacy. 

Truth obliges me to mention that the lavish parent 



32 NETTIE'S PRAYER. 

sustained a slight shock when the obliging saleswoman 
figured up and presented the amount of his indebt- 
edness ; but he rallied bravely. 

" Christmas comes but once a year !" he said, man- 
fully, and paid his bill with a good grace. 

"You could not purchase the same quantity of hap- 
piness so cheaply in any other manner," remarked the 
bland merchant, oracularly. 

The tit-bit of wisdom was assuredly not original 
with her, but it impressed the hearer as a profound 
and truthful observation — one well worth remember- 
ing. He was getting on very swiftly, indeed, in the 
acquisition of Christmas lore. 

"Tou have but two children, then, sir?" remarked 
the lady, casually, in handing him his change. 

" Bless my hfe ! I forgot the twins !" exclaimed the 
father, aghast. "But I suppose they are too young 
to appreciate Christmas presents." 

"What age?" queried the other, sweetly. 

" Two and a half." 

" My dear sir ! they would be disconsolate if they 
were overlooked ! Children understand these matters 
astonishingly soon." 

And having ascertained the sex of the twins, she 



NETTIE'S PRAYER. 33 

selected two rubber halls, and two sets of building 
blocks for their delectation. 

"Our porter will take them for you," she said, 
amused at Mr. Dryden's amazed contemplation of the 
dimensions of the pyramid she constructed of his pur- 
chases. " Please favor us with your address !" 

"Really, a httle more practice will render me an 
adept in toy shopping !" thought Mr. Dry den, com- 
placently, when he was beyond the enchanted ground, 
the seductions of which had Hghtened both heart and 
pocket. "It is not a disagreeable or difficult opera- 
tion, after all." 

As he neared his own door on his retm-n, his pockets 
crammed with conical packages of sugar-plums, nuts, 
and crystallized fruits, he overtook the porter with 
his barrow. 

" Quietly, my man !" he said, inserting his latch-key 
iu the lock with secret trepidation of spu'it. " It 
would never do to awaken the children. Or to attract 
my wife's attention," he added, inly. 

The porter's load was transferred to the hall so 
silently that even Mrs. Dryden's cat-like ears did not 
hear any bustle. Mr. Dry den sent the man off with 
a gratuity, and proceeded to dispose of the presents 
in the following style : the table bestraddled the right 



34 NETTIE'S PRATER. 

arm, and upon it were the boxes of crockery, sur- 
mounted by tbe chairs ; the case of jackstraws and 
several other light articles. The velocipede was borne 
in like manner upon the left coat sleeve ; then came 
the wheelbarrow ; the boxes of building-blocks, the balls, 
and on the top, held firmly in its place by ]\Ii-. Dry- 
den's chin, was the doll.. In the right hand he carried 
the sled ; in the other Dolly's carriage. This staid, 
prosaic pater-familias would have made no bad repre- 
sentation of the patron saint of the anniversary, the 
suggestion of whose existence he had scouted, a few 
hours previously, as he slowly ascended the staks on 
tiptoe, his face radiant with arch delight, despite the 
cowardly fear tugging at his heart-strings, as to the 
reception in store for him at the hands of his better 
half. Treading yet more delicately, in passing his 
sleeping-room, wherein, he had no doubt, Mrs. Dry- 
den was soundly reposing, it being ten o'clock, her 
invariable bedtime, he pushed open the door of the 
smaller chamber beyond, and entered. The gas was 
burning — not brightly — ^but it enabled him to see with 
terrible distinctness the figure that started up in the 
aisle between the beds and confronted him with an 
excited air. It was his wife ! 

Dropping the curtain upon a tableau which the 



NETTIE'S PRAYER. 35 

reader can picture to himself better than I can de- 
scribe, we will take a step or two backward in our 
story. 

" And it's sorry for the children I am, this blessed 
night!" said EUen, to the cook, over their dish of tea. 
" Sorra a bit of a merry-making wiU they have to- 
morrow — and they such good, peaceful little things, 
too ! I was asking Miss Nettie, just now, if I shouldn't 
hang up her stockings, at a venture-like ; ' for,' sez I, 
' there's no knowing but the saint might pop down 
the chimney, unbeknownst to you, and 'twould be a 
pity not to be ready for him.' For, you see, my heart 
was that tinder towards the lonesome craturs, that I 
thought I would step out myself, presently, and buy 
some candies and apples to put into thek poor, empty, 
desolate little stockings. But, 'No,' says she, kinder 
pitiful, 'I am afraid Mamma might not hke it, Ellen. 
She doesn't believe in keeping Christmas.' And wid 
that she give a sigh, Hke a sorrowful woman, and 
Master Ally growled over something cross to himself." 

"It's ra'al hard — that's what it is.'" responded 
Biddy. "They begged their Mamma, to-day, to let me 
fry some doughnuts — ' Just this once. Mamma, 'says 
they, 'because to-morrow's Christmas'— and she wouldn't 
hear a word to it. Ah ! no good ever came of ch'ating 



36 



NETTIE'S PEAYEK. 



childer out of the fun the Lord meant they should 
have." 

" There's the parlor bell !" said Ellen, jumping up. 
"What's wanted now, I wonder?" 

Her mistress stood upon the rug before the fire in 
the parlor, hat and cloak on. 

" Ellen, if you have finished your supper, I want 
you to get your bonnet and shawl and go out with 
me. Take a basket along. I am gohig to buy some 
things for the children." 

Her voice shook in uttering these few sentences ; 
and, although her face was averted, the girl was posi- 
tive that she had been weeping. Brimful of curiosity 
and excitement, she dashed up-stairs for her wrap- 
pings, then down to the kitchen to ask Biddy to 
listen for sounds from the nursery while she was out. 

"For we are going a-Christmassing — glory be to all 
the saints — St. Nicholas, in particular ! for he must 
have put it into her head to remember the swate 
innocents." 

It is not our piu-pose to follow them in their tramj), 
as we have traced the course of the lady's husband. 
Suffice it to say, that Ellen's basket was heavUy bur- 
dened when they re-entered the house, and her mis- 
tress bore sundry parcels in her hands, all of which 



NETTIE'S PKAYER. 37 

were carefully deposited upon the carpet beside the 
cots of the calmly-sleeping childi-en. Ellen was made 
happy, on her own account, by the present of a bank- 
bill for her private spending, and intrusted with an- 
other of the same value for Biddy ; then excused fi-om 
further service. If the maid had been mistaken in 
her surmise as to the tears she had seen in eyes 
which were generally dry and bright, there was no 
doubt as to the melting mood that overtook the 
mother when she removed the four stockings from 
the place where Nettie had laid them. She even 
pressed them to her lips before fastening the tops of 
each pair together with a stout pin, and hanging them 
over the footboards of the beds. To tmpack the bas- 
ket and undo papers, with as little rustling as was 
practicable, was her next act. She paused, when 
everything was uncovered, to survey her acquisitions. 
Her expenditures had been on a scale far less grand 
than her husband's, but maternal tact had guided her 
in the selection of acceptable gifts. There were a 
cooking-stove, with its assortment of pans, gi-iddles, 
and kettles; a work-box of satinwood, lined with red 
velvet, and well stocked; a cradle with a baby-doU 
asleep under the muslin curtain, for Nettie. For Ally, 
she had provided a bag of beautiful agate marbles ; a 



38 NETTIE'S PRATER. 

fine humming-top ; a paint-box, and a set — fourteen 
in number — of Abbott's inimitable "RoUo" books for 
boys. She had not forgotten the twins, as was evi- 
denced by a couple of whips ; two picture-books, and 
two tin horses mounted upon wheels ; one attached 
to an express wagon, the other to a baker's cart. 
Nor had she disdained to call upon the confectioner. 
Her conical bundles contained " Christmas mixture ;" 
plain sugar candy ; peppermint lozenges and oranges ; 
more wholesome, or, rather, less hui-tful sweets than 
the richer and costly dehcacies that had captivated 
her lord's fancy. Altogether, the sight was a jDleasant 
one, and a satisfactory, if one might judge by the 
gleam of comfort that overspread the tear-stained 
visage. She had just dropped a handful of the "mix- 
ture" into the foot of Ally's sock, when a soft tap at 
the door startled her. It was Ellen, and she bore a 
plate, covered with a napkin, in her hand. 

" If you plaze, mem — Biddy hopes you won't be 
offended, mem — but the children were so disappointed 
to-day, mem ; and when I told her you were goinj 
to give them a Christmas, she made so bold as to 
fry them a few doughnuts. She wouldn't have taken 
the privilege, only, seeing Christmas comes but once 
a year, and it's good children they are, mem !" 



NETTIE'S PRATE 



" They are, Ellen ! TeU Biddy that I am much 
obliged to her. These are very nice, indeed !" 

Yet she cried over them when the girl was gone. 
Her ver-y servants pitied the cruelly-oppressed little 



ones 



" I have been a hard, unsympathizing mother !" she 
thought, sobbingly. " God forgive me this, my sin !" 
She w^iped away the tears, and resumed her task. 
" William will think I have lost my senses !" she 
ruminated, cramming an orange into the leg of the 
tightly-stuffed sock. " But I can't help it, if he does !" 

And, as if invoked by her unspoken thought, her 
husband, accoutred as I have described, stood before 
her. 

" William !" 

" Emily !" 

The two detected culprits stared at one another for 
an instant, in unuttered, because unutterable amaze- 
ment ; then, as the truth dawned upon their minds, 
they burst into a fit of laughter that threatened to 
awake the di'eamers. 

" Hush-sh-sh !" said Mrs. Dryden, wiping away the 
tears of mirth that now hung where bitterer drops 
had trickled awhile ago, and pointing to the beds, 
" Let me see what you have been doing ?'' 



40 NETTIE'S PRATER. 

The prudent economist could not repress a single 
exclamation of gentle reproof, as she examined the 
store. " William Dry den ! And in these hard times, 
my dear !" 

" Christmas comes but once a year, wifie ! and then 
I had to make up for lost time, you know. I'll tell 
you how it happened, and then you won't blame me. 
I felt badly after tea, and came up to say a kind word 
to them" — nodding towards the brother and sister — 
"before they went to sleep, and, that door being ajar, 
I heard them talking" — 

" And Ustened, as I did at that one !" cried Mrs. 
Dryden, throwing her arms around his neck, and be 
ginning to cry afresh. " husband ! I have been so 
miserable ever since ! have felt so guilty ! Only to 
think, that I was teaching my children to hate me and 
to hate their home — making their hves wretched!" 

"Don't think of it, dear! After this, there will be 
peace and good-will among us!" soothed the husband, 
his own eyes shining suspiciously. " If we have made 
a mistake, we are ready to correct it. Now, let us 
see what disposition can be made of this cargo of valu- 
ables. And I left a lot of gimcracks — sweet things, 
you know — down stairs." 

Christmas morning came, clear and brilliant, with 



NETTIE'S PRATER. 41 

frosty sunlight, and Mrs. Dryden, as was her custom, 
tapped at the children's door, having beforehand stealth- 
ily unclosed it far enough to allow herself and her 
accomplice a view of the interior of the dormitory. 
" Come, little birds, it is time you were out of your 



The cheery, loving voice aroused the sleepers more 
thoroughly than sterner accents wotild have done. 
The mother was spared the pain of knowing that the 
novelty of the address made it so efficacious. 

" Yes, Mamma !" answered Nettie, starting up in 
bed. 

" All right !" responded Ally, and he tui'ned over. 

Thus it happened that the eyes of both rested sim- 
ultaneously upon an object in the centre of the apart- 
ment, and a ringing cry of joy escaped them. 

" Nettie, Santa Claus did come !" 

" Ally, don't you know what I prayed for ?" 

They were upon the floor before the words had left 
their lips. The next few minutes were passed in 
speechless admiration of the miraculous edifice that 
had arisen during their hours of unconsciousness. Mr. 
Dryden had made a second trip to the street, the 
night before, to buy a Chi-istmas tree. A broad, flat 
box, covered with a white cloth, formed the base upon 



42 NETTIE'S PRATER. 

which this was set. The larger toys were placed 
around the trunk, and smaller ones hung among the 
gilt balls, flags, and flowers, that decked the boughs. 
Miss Dolly sat at the root upon one of her new 
chaii-s, her foot upon the rocker of the new cradle, 
and, perched up in the topmost branches, was Santa 
Claus — white beard, pipe, pack, and aU — smihng 
broadly upon his enraptured devotees. 

Nettie broke the speU of ecstatic silence. " Dear 
Mamma ! Papa, darling !" she screamed. " Come and 
see ! It is just like faiiy-land !" 

And flying to the door, her curls streaming back, 
and her face fairly luminous with delight, she ran 
directly into her parents' arms. 

"Christmas shall be an 'institution' in our famUy, 
hereafter !" said Mr. Dry den, that night, when the 
happy children had kissed them "good-night" over 
and over again. "I am a better man for last even- 
ing's work and this day's innocent frolic. I feel 
twenty years younger, and fifty degrees happier. It 
pays, my dear — it pays!" 



>f-^^ 



<i) 



^r 



ill lE^iiit^^^ 



©\^p 







DO not approve of lady lecturers, as a 
general tMng," I remarked meditatively, a 
while since, to a gentleman, in whose pres- 
ence I am somewhat prone to think aloud. 
"You aUude to public lectures?" said he, inter- 
rogatively, with unnecessary emphasis. 
" Of course !" 

"Oh!" and he resumed the study of a very dry- 
looking volume. 

Affecting not to observe the mischievous gleam of 
of his eye, I resumed : — 

"But I am sometimes tempted to ask the use of 
your lecture-room for one evening, to call together 
an audience from which all persons of the masculine 
gender shall be excluded, and, then and there, ha- 
rangue my own sex upon a subject that has engrossed 
much of my time and thoughts for eight years past." 



46 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

" What is it — cookery or dry goods ? Either topic 
would be popular?" 

" Something more important than both put to- 
gether !" I retorted. My theme would be — 

" ' Tlie Rights of Babies and the Responsibilities of 
Mothers V " 

My auditor raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips 
very slightly — just enough to give one the impression 
that he would have whistled, had not politeness re- 
strained him. Seeing that I was in nowise abashed by 
these discoiu-aging manifestations, he offered an amend- 
ment to my resolution. 

" Better write your discourse, instead, and have it 
printed." 

"But," I objected, "what I would say would be ad- 
dressed to women alone. We don't care to let men 
know how unmercifully we can handle one another. 
Moreover, I should use great plainness of speech" — 

" I think I can set your mind at rest on that 
point," interrupted my companion, drily. " I don't 
believe many men would read your treatise." 

Whereupon he picked up his treatise and withdrew 
to his sanctum, leaving me to arrange the heads of 
my " disccurse," or to ponder the meaning of his last 
equivocal observation. 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH JI OTHERS. 47 

And thus it came to pass, that, sitting lonely here, 
and arranging plans for the coming festival — the 
jubilee that, throughout Christendom, commemorates 
the birth of a Httle Child in the grotto of far-off 
Bethlehem ; musing of that Child and his mother, 
while from the wall, the Mater Dolorosa, wondrous 
in beauty and in sorrow, looked down upon me — 
thought followed thought, and memories — sweet, ten- 
der, and full of joy, others sad, yet precious, and 
mingled with wistful yearning, flowed in upon me, 
and I have taken up my pen, not to indite a lecture 
or an essay, but a simple, homely, heartfelt Christ- 
mas letter to my fellow-workers in the great mission 
to which God has called us. 

"And first, let me remark, by way of "beginning 
at the beginning," as old-time teachers were wont to 
exhort their scholars to do — that Babies have a right 
to be. 

This is not the page whereon to record a fi-ank 
and full opinion upon such a subject, nor is mine 
the wiU or abiUty to treat of the mysteries of iniquity, 
the violence done to conscience, humanity, and nat- 
ural affection, that have come to be talked of in the 
so-called higher circles as familiar things, convenient 
and expedient measures for leaving fashionable mothers 



48 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

— (does not tlie holy word look like a bitter sarcasm, 
written in this connection ?) — for leaving frivolous, 
heartless mothers, I say, at liberty to follow the de- 
vices of their own foolish brains, and delivering sordid 
fathers from what I have heard professing Christians 
style — " the curse of a large family." I know that 
such abominations do exist, and so does the fair reader, 
who is ready to ostracize me for daring to hint thus 
publicly at what she privately approves and advocates. 
I can see that our pleasure-loving neighbors over the 
water are in a fair way to be rivaled, if not eclipsed, 
in certain respects, by their American cousins. Further 
than this I will not go. I only refer to this, to me 
revolting subject, to substantiate a conclusion at which 
I have arrived in the course of my serious and often 
sadly troubled lucubrations with regard to this matter. 
It is my conviction that the real root of the evil Hes 
back of this, its most reprehensible offshoot. I have 
no means of settling the date at which the opinion or 
prejudice was implanted on this continent, but certaia 
it is, that a vast proportion — I fear, a large majority 

— of American mothers, would secretly, if not openly, 
controvert my first proposition. There is among us, 
if not a woeful deficiency of genuine maternal instinct, 
a style — a fashion, if you choose to call it, and a 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 49 

very vile fashion it is — of deprecating as a grievous 
affliction the repeated visits of what a higher authority 

than " the noted Dr. , from Paris," or the autocrat 

of neighborhood gossips, has declared to be among 
Heaven's best gifts to human kind. 

"Poor Mi's. A., with her eight children, hke a flight 
of stairs — just two years between them" — is, by her 
friends' very pity, made to feel that she is, in some 
sense, the inferior of Mrs. B., who " manages so beauti- 
fully ! She has but three, and they are seven years 
apart. 

It matters not that Mrs. A.'s household resembles 
a snug nest of chii-ping birdlings, who he all the 
warmer for being obliged to stow a Httle closely ; who 
learn patience and loving-kindness and generosity by 
hourly practice of these graces upon one another, 
without being aware that any lessons are set for them 
— they come so naturally ; who never lack company 
or sympathy, by reason of the abundance of home 
companions and home love ; who bid fair to keep 
their parents' name long alive upon the earth, and, 
in their own maturity, to transmit to an extended 
circle — to a large community — it may be to a whole 
nation, the principles taught them at their mother's 
knees and from their father's lips. It signifies little 



50 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

to the feminine cabal that each one of the Uttle B.'s 
has been, for seven long weary years, that most for- 
lorn and pitiable of juvenile specimens — an only baby; 
has become dwarfed in affections ; narrowed as to 
ability to love and to enter into the feehngs of other 
children ; thoroughly, and often incorrigibly selfish •, 
and when, at last, the lustrum being accomplished, 
the newer infant is ushered into the world, the older 
regards it with dire distrust and lurking jealousy, if 
not avowed dislike, as the usurper of his or her 
hitherto undisputed rights. 

"My children wiU never be companions for one an- 
other ; they are so far apart !" sighs Mrs. B., as the 
pert Miss of fourteen pronounces the tiny sister, who 
has not numbered as many hours of existence, " a reg- 
ular bore !" and " wonders why she came. Nobody 
wants her ; and it is too provoking to have a baby 
in the house just as one is beginning to go into 
society, and wants a good deal of gay comjDany." 

But Mrs. Grundy — an American Mrs. Grundy, you 
may be sure, with a dash of Parisian philosophy — 
has declared the one matron to be a broken-down 
druge, a domestic slave — " quite behind the times. 
in fact !" while " Mrs. B. is a truly fortunate and " — 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 51 

here Mis. Grundy whispers — "a very enlightened and 
judicious lady !" 

What an odious savor in Mrs. G-.'s delicate nostrils 
would be the antiquated but pious friend who should, 
out of the plenitude of his love and good will for Mr. 
Grundy, pray, in the words of the Psalmist, that his 
wife might be a fruitful vine, and his children olive 
plants round about his table ! 

No! we do not, as a class, appreciate the dignity — 
I use the word advisedly — the dignity and privilege 
of maternity ! In this respect, our English sisters are 
far ahead of us. The Hebrew women, under the The- 
ocracy, understood it better still, when Eachel pined 
in her quiet tent for the murmur of baby-voices and 
the touch of baby-fingers, and Hannah knelt in the 
court of the temple, to supplicate, with strong crying 
and tears, that the holy fountains of motherly love 
within her heart might flow out upon offspring of 
her own. In those days it was the childless wife, 
and not she who had borne many sons and daughters, 
who besought that her reproach might be taken away ; 
that she might be accounted worthy to be intrusted 
with the high duty of rearing children to swell the 
ranks of the Lord's chosen people. 

" If I felt as you do," said a lady, sneeringly, to 



52 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

a friend of mine ; " if I considered tlie gift of chil- 
dren a blessing, and the care of them a delightful 
task, I would not wait for the slow process by which 
Nature creates famiHes, but adopt a dozen at a time 
from an asylum." 

" They would not be mine !" was the quiet reply. 

I do not envy that mother her heart, who does not 
enter into the meaning of this rejoinder ; who has not 
felt the deUcious thrill of ownership in an object so 
lovely and precious as the helpless babe she has 
braved death itself to win ; the awed dehght of con- 
templating the new creation — living, intelligent, im- 
mortal — given to be hers! It may be — I have seen 
it somewhere asserted — that there is, after aU, a 
species of sublimated selfishness in the ecstatic sweet- 
ness of the thought so well expressed by Emily Jud- 
son : — 

" The pulse first caugM its tiny stroke, 
The blood its crimson hue from mine! 
The life which I have dared invoke 
Henceforth is parallel with These !" 

The candid reader who has known the depth and 
strength of a mother's love, her patience, constancy, 
and self-sacrifice, will, I fancy, agree with me in pro- 
nouncing the selfishness to be venj "sublimated." 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 53 

Said Mr. Toots, upon the occasion of the birth of 
his fourth daughter — "The oftener we can repeat that 
extraordinary woman the better !" Everybody laughs 
at the proud husband's praise of his spouse, but — ask 
your heart, loving mother, if there is not a strange 
fuUness of joy in watching the reproduction of your 
traits, physical, mental, and moral, in your child ? 
How many times a day does she bring back some 
half-forgotten scene of your own childhood ? How 
frequently, at the expression of her fancies, or ojiin- 
ions, or desu-es, do you say, with a smile, a sigh — 
perchance a tear — "I felt, or thought, or longed the 
same at her years ; it is her inheritance ?" Is there 
not a joy yet greater, an inexpressible swelling of love 
and pride, as you see in the Hneaments and gesture 
of your boy, the faithful portraiture of one dearer to 
you than your own soul? I am not talking now to 
those who have felt nothing of all this; from whom 
the knowledge of these sacred mysteries has been 
withheld, and who are incapable, from the barren- 
ness and shallowness of their own spiritual natm-es, 
of ever entering fully into them. It is useless to say 
to these that motherhood is a holy thing, and off- 
spring the boon of Heaven; that, amidst the wild 
clamor of woman's rights and woman's sphere, she 



54 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

best enacts the role appointed her by the wise Parent 
of all, does most to elevate her race, who rears strong, 
good men, and gentle, noble daughters to serve God 
and the generation to come. To the gross, all things 
are gross, and these truths are pearls, too clear in 
their purity to be trampled by such. I appeal to 
mothers — to brave, pious women who fear God and 
love their husbands — but who have yet never arisen 
to the perfect realization of the grandeur of the work 
assigned them ; never thought of themselves as the 
architects of the nation's fortunes, the sculptors, whose 
fair or foul handiwork is to outlast their age, to outlive 
Time, to remain through all Eternity. I would awaken 
those whom the prejudices of education or the plausible 
sophistries of the modern fashionable school have 
bUnded to the deep significance of those words — "Be- 
hold, childi-en are an heritage from the Lord, and 
the fruit of the womb is His reward !" 

Women ! sisters ! be assured there is something tear- 
fully and radically wrong in a system that teaches us 
to despise or refuse our rightful share in our Father's 
riches ! Look to it, lest haply ye be found to sin 
against God! 

My second assertion is that it is a right of babies 
to have mothers. 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 55 

" I have never desired children ; have alvs^ays been 
bitterly opposed to the coming of each new claimant 
upon my time and labor," I once heard a lady say. 
" Two of mine never breathed, and I experienced a 
sensation of joyful relief when I found that my cares 
were not then to be increased. Yet I love my chil- 
dren very much as they grow older, and my con- 
science assures me that I have discharged my duty 
to them faithfully. I accept them as inevitable evils 
which religion and philosophy require me to endure 
as well and gracefully as possible." 

Yet the speaker was not a " strong-minded woman," 
in the popular acceptation of the term. She believed 
in St. Paul, and had never read a word of Malthus 
in her life, if indeed she were aware of the existence 
of that author. She reprobated women's colleges and 
learned ladies ; stayed at home and kept her hus- 
band's house with all dihgence, and was generally 
regarded as a pattern wife and estimable member of 
society, I declare, nevertheless, that if she spoke the 
truth in this instance, her babies were motherless. 
They had a capable nurse; one wbo discharged the 
external duties of her position with conscientious fidel- 
ity, and who, in the course of time, as any tolerably 
warm-hearted nursery-maid could not but have done. 



56 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

grew into a more liyely degree of interest in the win- 
some beings committed to her charge. But of true 
mother-love — the beautiful instinct, and sacred as beau- 
ful — the L lending of hope and longing and soHcitude 
that, not content with receiving the dear trust with 
eager embrace at the threshold of what we caU Hfe, 
goes forth to meet it in that mysterious, imperfect 
existence which even she does not wholly compre- 
hend, and from the moment the revelation of the 
coming advent is known to herself, studies the com- 
fort and well-being of the one whose name may per- 
haps never be written among the hving upon the 
earth ; watching and regulating the workings of her 
physical natui'e ; keeping her mind calm and free ; 
hushing every wild heart-beat, lest the irregular throb 
should disturb the exquisitely susceptible organiza- 
tion of that which lies so near it — that always mar- 
velous, yet ever-renewed miracle of human devotion, 
which Deity does not shun to name in connection 
with His own boundless, perfect love ; of this, the 
decent matron in question knew about as much as 
I do of Sanscrit, or the dialect spoken by the natives 
among the coffee groves of Borrioboola-Gha. 

I am happy to beHeve that the maternal care which 
antedates the birth of its object is becoming daily a 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 57 

subject of deeper thought and more enlightened com- 
prehension, with those whose duty it is to be instructed 
in this regard. It is only among the ignorant or the 
reckless that we find total disbelief and utter neglect 
of the laws which treat of the intimate and subtle re- 
lation existing between mother and child. It is no 
longer customary to scout as old wives' fables the 
tales of horrible wrong done by passionate or impru- 
dent women to the bodies and intellects of their 
unborn babes. But we have still much to learn, and 
more to heed upon this vital point. 

Passing thus briefly over the earhest phase of motherly 
duty, we come to the education of the hviug, breath- 
ing, " necessary evil," or cherished blessing, as the 
parent's taste or principles may determine the httle 
stranger to be. The pink, plump, piping bantling has 
been exhibited to the usual round of ceremonious 
visitors, and passed muster with all — in the mother's 
hearing — having been praised by one as the image 
of his papa, and by another, no less discerning, as 
his mother's mmiature, and, content with having acted 
weU its part, in voting him to be a "remarkably fine 
child," the "finest of the season," Society dismisses 
the subject and remands baby to his curtained e^-ib 
in the darkest corner of the nursery. For aU that 



58 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

Society cares or thinks, he may, in that convenient 
retreat, slumber away the seasons of infancy and 
adolescence in a sort of Eip Van Winkle torpor, until 
his long clothes drop from his growing frame hke the 
husk from a ripe nut. Society does not regard a 
"human boy" — as Mr. Chadband has it — as having 
arrived at the " interesting age" until he attains the 
age of discretion. Young lady cousins, • enthusiastic 
school-girls, or matrons, incited to the examination 
by thoughts of their own little ones, occasionally hft 
the lace curtain and turn down the coverlet ; call 
him an " angel," and remark in rapturous whispers 
upon his increasing size and comehness, and forget 
all about him by the time they reach the foot of 
the stairs. Or, an old friend of the family who "dotes 
upon babies," begs that the "cherub" may be brought 
down to the parlor, saying, in pathetic reproach, "To 
think, my love, how seldom I see the darling ! " 
Really deceived into a belief of the sincerity of her 
visitor's desire, mamma sends off an order to nurse ; 
baby is caught up from his crib of ease, thrust into 
a clean slip, his tender scalp brushed to the right 
and left of the line — more or less imaginary — where 
the down — alias hair — ought to part, until the soft, 
throbbing spot on the top of his head pulsates faster 



A CHEISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 59 

and harder with pain and fright. Duly prepared for 
inspection, he performs the journey to the lower floor, 
where he undergoes a vigorous kissing from the baby- 
lover, who "must hold him" herself. The bhnds are 
opened, that his budding beauties may be clearly 
seen, and whUe the connoisseur goes into a transport 
of admiration, Master Baby, alarmed, fluttered, and 
uncomfortable, first looks long and piteously into the 
strange visage above him, and proceeds to express 
his sentiments by wrinkhng up his cherubic nose 
and opening his cherry mouth for a squall. 

"There! take him, nurse!" says the visitor, hastily. 
" He does not fancy new acquaintances. In a year 
or two, he will be just at the interesting age, and we 
shall be capital fiiends. Not a word, my dear!" — to 
Mamma, who stammers an apology. "All young chil- 
dren behave worst when we want them to show off" 
their prettiest ways." 

This may be true, but for my part I don't blame 
the babies. 

Most Papas are shy or neghgent of their heirs or 
heiresses at this epoch. It is quite common to hear 
ladies relate, as a proof, I suppose, of their spouses' 
superiority to smaU matters, that they are utterly 
careless of their babies while they are in arms. 



60 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHEBS. 

" Mr. C. never notices one of his until it is two 
years of age," remarks Mrs. C. "Then, when he sees 
that it is a pretty plaything, he becomes quite fond 
of it, enjoys frolicking with it." 

As he would with a puppy, which, frisking about 
his feet, should attract his lordship's attention to its 
graceful shape and winning ways ! 

" Mr. D. thinks young babies disgusting Httle ani- 
mals !" laughs Mrs. D., in reply. " He says that he 
would not kiss one under eighteen months old, for 
five hundred dollars !" 

My private opinion, which, of course, I do not 
divulge to Mrs. D., is that her husband is a Yahoo, 
and ought to be banished to GuUiver's famous island, 
in order that he might consort with his feUows. 

Even good, right-minded, affectionate Papas — like 
your stronger half and mine, dear reader ! — do not 
overwhelm his very httleness with demonstrations of 
esteem. 

" Say good-by to Baby !" you plead, as his paternal 
progenitor enters the nursery to take leave of you 
until dinner-time. 

If he does not smoke, and is very amiable, he stoops 
and touches the little forehead vnth his lips — a very 
different salute from that bestowed upon yourself. If 



A CHEISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 61 

he has lighted a cigar, he repHes : " I won't kiss him. 
The tobacco might sicken him. Good-by, monkey !" 
tapping the velvet cheek with one finger. 

Baby blinks and throws his fat arms about in a 
blind, senseless fashion, which you think very cunning. 

" Did you ever see a child grow and improve as 
he does !" you ask, delightedly. 

" Oh, very !" is the good-natured, but not very per- 
tinent Response. " The fact is, wifie, I am not much 
of a judge of the article in its present state. Wait 
until he reaches the interesting age, and you will have 
no cause to complain of my lukewarm praise." 

Bridget, also, " is very fond of children, when they 
get to be knowing and wise, and full of pretty tricks, 
but she finds the care of a young baby very confin- 
ing," and but for the tip-top wages she gets, would 
probably look out for another place. 

No, fond mother — and proud as fond! your blessed 
baby is, during the first months of helpless, dumb 
infancy, "interesting" to nobody except youi'self. But 
there are weighty reasons besides the indifference of 
others that should make him, now, the object of youi* 
especial care, and this period one of continual watch- 
fulness and affectionate soHcitude. Intrust to no nui'se, 
however experienced, the task of bathing and feeding, 



62 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

dressing and nndressing, the tender little body. It 
will never need your gentle handling, your quick eye, 
more than at present, A pin misplaced, a sudden 
wrench of a joint ; the twist of the upholding hand, 
bringing the head or a hmb into contact with table 
or chair, may lay the foundation of years of pain and 
disease, if not of incurable deformity. 

We hear much talk about good and bad babies ; 
how IVIrs. Such-an-one always has model children, that 
give her no trouble at all ; but sleep and eat at reg- 
ular seasons, and never cry when awake, unless they 
are in pain, while Mrs. So-and-so's existence is a 
woeful burden. with her restless, fretful progeny, who 
turn day into night, and night into day, and some- 
times decline having any night at all in the course 
of the twenty-four hours ; who are continually crying 
to be fed at all manner of inconvenient times ; who 
are, in short, as wrong-headed and peevish brats as 
one can find in a day's ride. Yet, Mrs. So-and-so 
says that they are healthy and hearty, and suffer no 
pain. "It is just her luck to have cross children. 
All hers are bom crabbed." 

In behalf of the infant tribe I enter a protest 
against this calumny. Well-bred, healthy, comfortable 
babies are never cross until they are rendered so, in 



A CHRISTMAS TALK "WITH MOTHERS. 63 

spite of themselves, by mismanagement. If Mrs. So- 
and-so puts her Bobby to sleep where he is hable to 
be awakened by the ordinary noises of the household 
machinery, and, furthermore, when these, or some un- 
toward accident has started him from the slumber 
that should have lasted two hours, before one-half of 
this time has elapsed, if she makes matters worse by 
taking him up, instead of quieting all external dis- 
turbance and lulling him agaia to rest before he 
knows where he is, or what has happened ; if he is 
fed just when it suits Mrs. S.'s or Bridget's con- 
venience or Bobby's whim, at intervals of varying 
lengths ; the probabihty, I may say, the certainty is, 
that Bobby will become an unreasonable, discontented 
tyrant, a nuisance to himself and to all around him. 
And if Susy, and Jenny, and Dicky are all trained 
after the like manner, there is an equal certainty that 
Iklrs. So-and-so will have, among her acquaintances, 
the deserved reputation of being the worn-out, irritable 
mother of a brood of cross, spoiled, "hateful" chH- 
dren. But, again I say, I don't blame the babies ! First 
of aU, make the darlings welcome; that is half the 
battle ! Then, make them comfortable. A celebrated 
medical man gives three capital rules for secui'ing 
this desii-able end: "Plenty of milk, plenty of sleep, 



64 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

and plenty of flannel." I would add a cardinal prin- 
ciple, governing every other — begin from the outset 
— from the day of birth, if possible, a gentle, firm 
system of jDunctuahty in feeding, dressing, and putting 
to sleep the wee things that lie, like breathing auto- 
mata, upon the hands that foster them. Like their 
fellows of a larger growth, they are creatures of 
habit. 

I wish — how fervently and how frequently, I dare 
not pretend to say — that method, a wise and just 
system of duty and recreation, could be made the 
chief earthly law of every household. Let there not 
only be "a place for every thing and every thing in 
its place," but a time for every thing, and let every 
thing be done in its season. When I see the mis- 
tress of a family toiling and worried from morning 
until night, pulled a dozen different ways at once, 
by as many duties, all of apparently equal importance, 
driving herself and servants, wearying her husband 
by incessant complaints, and dragging, rather than 
bringing up her children, I wonder not that Amer- 
ican women break down so early, but at the tenacity 
of life that enables them to endure their load for a 
single year. The clever writer of an article, entitled 
"A Spasm of Sense," published not long since, in 



A CHEISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 65 

one of our most clever monthlies, finds the cause of 
the lamentable condition of so many a domestic estab- 
lishment in the superabundance of ohve-plants that 
crowd American nurseries. From my different stand- 
point, I am inclined to believe the trouble to be, 
not that there are too many babies, but that there 
are not more wise and capable mothers. 

I know a lady who was, when she married, a deH- 
cate, beautiful gii-1, the petted favorite of a large 
circle of admiring friends. The seventh anniversary 
of her wedding-day saw her the mother of five chil- 
dren. Acquaintances, who only heard of this rapid 
increase of cares, shook mournful heads and di-ew 
pitying sighs, between contemptuous smiles. " ^\Tiat 
a change !" 

It was a change, than which my eyes have rarely 
beheld a fairer. Her babies were not pattern, spirit- 
less dolls, but hearty, roguish youngsters, who frol- 
icked, and shouted, and disputed, as all sound, sprightly 
children will do, and as they should not be hindered 
from doing. But Mamma was at once the motive- 
power and centre of attraction of the system, wherein 
these hvely planets revolved. She was more lovely, 
with a chastened, matronly beauty, than in her girl- 
hood, and discontent had ploughed no furrows in her 



66 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

smooth brow. To each of the fast-coming troop she 
gave a motherly greeting, and, as by magic, brought 
it, with its wishes and needs, under the influence of 
the judicious law of order that extended over the rest 
of her band. She nourished them from her bosom ; 
bathed, dressed, and undressed them, and herseK laid 
them down for the nightly and midday slumber ; made 
most of their clothing with her own hands ; as they 
grew older, directed their studies — she " could not 
bear to send them from her to school !" Yet she was 
the ever-patient, ever-cheerful referee in theu' sports 
and quarrels ; looked well to the other ways of her 
household ; was a faithful mistress, a good house- 
keeper, and a kind neighbor, and, withal, managed 
to keep up with the best hterature of the day ; and 
when her husband's business hours were over, became 
his companion, at home and abroad, with more ease 
and frequency than any other wife I ever saw. 

This is no fancy sketch, nor have I done the original 
justice. It is not surprising that the offspring of such 
a woman should rise up and call her blessed ; the 
marvel and disgxace are, that there are not hundreds 
and thousands like her, throughout the country. I 
do not ask that our daughters should be brought up 
in the behef that matrimony is the chief end of 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS, 67 

woman's existence. I do hold, in consideration of the 
fact that an immense majority of our sex do marry 
and have the cares of a family laid upon them, that 
girls ought to receive a training which shall fit them, 
in some degree, for a position involving responsibil- 
ities so solemn and onerous. 

I tnow the popular outcry against the slavishness 
of maternal duties. 

" As well bury me alive after the first year of mar- 
ried life !" cries Mrs. A-la-mode. " I, with my edu- 
cation and accomplishments, may surely aspire to a 
higher position than that of nursery-maid! I consider 
that I serve my children more effectually by reserv- 
ing my strength and cultivating my talents against 
such time as their maturer minds shall require my 
companionship." 

In other words, Mrs. A-la-mode leaves it to hired 
menials to work, irrigate, and plant the virgin soil, 
and expects, in the ripening of the harvest, to put 
in her patent sickle — latest style — and gather such 
grain as she shall then decree. I am acquainted with 
but one way in which a woman can conscientiously 
and surely evade the fulfilment of a mother's obli- 
gations. In this day and country, there are no forced 
marriages. If Miss Faintheart and Miss Easy abhor 



68 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

the prospect of dii-ecting and fostering a young family, 
they can remain single ; and, to be frank, I think 
the next generation wiU be the gainers by their ceU- 
bacy. 

Again, and strictly apropos to this division of my 
subject — Babies have a right to be heard. 

" My dear children," said a Sabbath-school lecturer ; 
" when I say ' boys ' I mean girls, and when I say 
'gii-ls' I mean boys." 

He designed to be entirely comprehensive in his ad- 
dress, and engage the attention of both sexes ; but 
his juvenile auditors were evidently in a state of 
terrible confusion after this lucid preamble, most of 
them imagining that he meditated some game of cross- 
purposes ; as when " Eise, No. 2 " means that No. 2 
must do quite the opposite thing and not budge, 
upon penalty of a forfeit. But when I say " babies," 
I mean children of tender years — legal infants — and 
do not confine myself altogether to those in arms. 

Especially has a baby a right to a hearing from 
Mamma. Unless you have been so foolish as to let 
him form a habit of crying — and this should be cares,- 
fully avoided — his wail or scream always means that 
something is amiss, and it is your business to find 
out what it is. If you choose to send Bridget to see 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 69 

" wliat ails that cliild, now !" at least let him be brought 
to you for inquiry and for judgment. Take the con- 
vulsed, struggling little fellow in your arms ; draw 
his head to your bosom ; pat the wet cheeks and 
kiss the mouth quivering in distress, that is more 
than he can bear, slight and ridiculous as it may be 
to you. Soothe and quiet, before you chide, should 
there seem to be need for reproof. Remember — and 
it is a sadly solemn thought — that your arms form 
the only refuge outside the bosom of Infinite Com- 
passion, to which he can, as man and boy, flee ahke 
in sin and woe, in innocence and joy. Don't hush 
his sobbed confession or complaint, however strangled 
and uninteUigible. It does him good to utter it, 
whether you understand it or not. Don't call him 
" a silly boy * for crying because he has broken the 
whip Papa gave him only this morning, or because 
the pretty kitty Auntie sent him has proved ungrate- 
ful and deserted her doting master. It is doubtful 
if you ever had what was to you a greater loss than 
either of these is to him. If his are tears of bereave- 
ment, kiss them away and hold up some promise of 
future dehght that shall cast a rainbow athwart the 
cloud of giief. If he weeps in childish anger, be 
loving, while you rebuke. He loses much— how much, 



70 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

Eternity can only tell — who has not learned, from ex- 
perience, the fullness and sweetness of that simple 
line — "As one whom his mother comforteth." 

Never let your child have his cry out alone. If he 
is old enough to observe that yours is studied neglect, 
he has also sense sufficient to enable him to put his 
own construction upon what is, to him, yom' cruel 
indifference to his suffering ; and just in proportion 
as he recognizes and resents this, yoiir influence over 
him is weakened ; his faith in your love shaken. If 
he is too young to guess why you disregard his 
outcry, terror and pain lay hold of his spirit, as is 
evinced by the changed tone of his lamentation. 
Shall I tell you a Httle story, just here, one which 
is unfortunately drawn from life ? 

A mother — a good woman, but a trifle too strong 
of will, and wedded to a pet theory of family govern- 
ment, according to which, children were but machines, 
to be subject in every particular to the authority of 
the chief engineer — one evening laid her babe, about 
ten months old, in his crib, for the night. The child 
manifested great unwiUingness to lie still, and pres- 
ently began to cry. The mother seated herself quietly 
to work upon the other side of the room, and took 
no outward notice of his screams. An elderly gentle- 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS? 71 

man, a relative, was present, and remonstrated witli 
her upon her silence. 

" He wiU certainly injure himseU, if you do not 
stop his crying!" 

" That is the old-fashioned doctrine," replied the 
parent, with a smile of conscious superiority. " I 
always expect one gi'and struggle for supremacy with 
each of my children. He is in revolt now, and must 
be treated as a rebel. If I yield, and take him up, 
the lesson is lost." 

" I don't ask you to take him up ! Only speak to 
him. He is well-nigh heart-broken. He wUl rupture 
a blood-vessel." 

" No danger ! It strengthens his lungs to cry in 
that uproarious manner. I have known babies to 
scream for two or three hours, without sustaining 
the least injury." 

"You wiU excuse me, at any rate, from staying 
here to see the battle out !" and the uncle left the 
room. 

Eeturning, at the end of an hour, he foimd the 
child stiU screaming — now, in an ang-uished shriek 
that rent the man's heart. The woman and mother 
sat stiU and sewed steadily — it seemed calmly. 

"I can not and will not bear this!" ejaculated the 



72 'A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

old gentleman. " If you don't take pity on that poor 
Uttle thing, I wiU !" 

" Uncle !" the niece lifted her stern eyes. " I per- 
mit no one — not even my husband — to interfere in 
my management of my child. His passion is at its 
height. It wiU soon subside." 

The cries were, indeed, growing less vehement. Too 
anxious to retire again until the scene was over, the 
uncle walked the room, hearkening, with tortured 
nerves, to the feebler and stiU feebler waU ; sinking, 
by and by, into fitful sobbings ; then, into pants hke 
those of a tired, hunted-down animal. These came 
at longer and longer intervals — and all was still. The 
uncle approached the crib, and bent over it. 

" An hour and three-quarters !" said the mother, 
triumphantly, looking at the clock. "You will find, 
uncle, that, having gained this victory, I shall never 
have another contest with him." 

" You never wiU, madam !" was the awful rejoinder. 
" Your child is dead !" 

I wish I could say that this incident was of doubt- 
ful authenticity, but it is true, from beginning to end. 
I grant you that it is an extreme case, but the like 
might occur with any young child. Ask yourself 
how you would endure a fit of violent hysterical 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 73 

weeping, for the space of an hour, or an hour and 
three-quarters ! Days would elapse ere you recov- 
ered from the effects of the shock to nerves and 
heai't ; but " it never hurts an infant to cry." That 
which would exhaust and irritate your lungs, " strength- 
ens " his ! 

If your older child has any thing to divulge which 
he deems important, contrive to give him a patient 
hearing ; encourage him to full confidence. Many a 
life has been embittered by fears or fancies, that 
could have been removed as soon as they were formed, 
by five minutes' free conversation with a kind, sensible 
parent. To tliis day, I own to feehng an unpleasant 
sensation at the sight of any sing-ularly-shaped or col- 
ored cloud in the heavens. This I attribute directly 
to a terrible fright I had when but four and a half 
years old. 

My nurse, a young colored girl — a genuine Topsey, 
by the way — had early instructed me in the popular 
belief concerning the personal appearance of His Satanic 
Majesty, and I had swallowed every word, until his 
horns, cloven hoof, forked tail, fiery breath, and worst 
of all, a certain three-pronged fork he was hx the 
habit of carrying about with him, that he might 
impale unwary sinners, as Indians spear salmon — 



74 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

were articles of as firm faith with me as was the fact 
of my own existence. He had an inconvenient prac- 
tice of careering through mid-air — Topsey had added 
— with this trident akeady poised, on the lookout for 
bad httle girls, who were supposed to be dainty tid- 
bits in his estimation. One day, I was walking in 
the garden, unconscious of coming ill, when, chanc- 
ing to look up, I saw, right above me, a small, dark 
cloud, irregular in outhne, and moving swiftly before 
a strong wind. My first glance caught only this ; my 
second traced, with the rapidity of hghtning, the head, 
the tail, the lower limbs, and, brandishing wildly in 
air, the right arm, holding the fatal flesh-fork ! 

St. Dunstan or Luther would have stood his ground, 
as did Christian against Apollyon, but I had not the 
pluck of these worthies, and had I been endowed with 
the spirit of all three, there were neither tongs, ink- 
stand, nor two-edged sword handy. So I chose the 
wiser part of valor, and ran, in frenzied haste, for the 
house, never stopping until I was safely ensconced 
under my mother's bed. Here I lay for a long time, 
quaking with fear, queer shivers running down my 
spine at thought of the sharp points I had so nar- 
rowly escaped. Then the supper-bell rang, and I 
crept out, unperceived. I had no appetite, and must 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 75 

have worn a strange, scared look, for my mother asked 
if I were sick. I answered, "No," very shame-facedly, 
and she did not press her inquiries. Children are not 
apt to be very communicative as to any great fright, 
except ia the excitement of the first alarm. They fear 
to live it over in the recital 

That night, for the first time in my life, I cried to 
have the lamp left burning in the chamber where I 
slept. My mother reasoned with me, for a while, tell- 
ing me that the angels watched over good children, 
etc. This I did not doubt, but I was by no means 
siu-e that I was a good child. The apparition of the 
afternoon was frightful circumstantial evidence to the 
contrary. At last she scolded me for my cowardice 
and went away, taking the precious light with her. 
I wonder that my hair did not turn white dui-ing 
the ensuing houi-s of thick darkness. I pity myself 
now, as I remember the poor, fi'ightened baby, lying 
trembling on her little bed, and staring into the gloom, 
peopled by her imagination with horrors. Driven to 
desperation, I once awoke my older sister, who shared 
my couch, and, in an awe-stricken whisper, imparted 
my fears and their origin. She was not credulous or 
imaginative, and, perhaps, did not quite understand 
what I said, for her only answer was— "pshaw!" and 



76 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

she was sound asleep again in a second. How and 
wlien slumber came to me I know not, but my mother 
reproved me, next morning, for wrapping the coverlet 
so tightly about my head, saying that I would be 
smothered some night, if I continued the practice. 

Three sentences from either of my parents would 
have laid the hobgoblin to rest forever, and I recol- 
lect that I did, several times, essay to broach the 
subject to my mother, very unskillfully, I dare say, 
for she did not encourage my preliminary remarks, 
and resolution failed me before I reached the point. 
I was a tall girl of fourteen when I confessed to her 
that, for five or six years, I believed that I had really 
seen the devil ! 

Lastly — for my rambling "talk" has already trans- 
cended the limits I at first assigned to it — Babies 
have a right to he babies. 

That precocious and unnatural growth of prudence, 
propriety, and learning in young children, which is 
variously described as " old-fashioned," " smart," and 
"wearing a gray head'Tipon green shoulders," is some- 
times an offensive, always a pitiable sight. A hfe 
without childhood is like an arid summer day, to 
which the dew of morning has been denied. There 
are blossoms which the heat of incipient decay has 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 77 

forced into premature expansion. We all understand 
this law of Divine husbandry. Happy is she who has 
never had reason to .tremble at sight of this early 
and brilliant bloom ; who has not wept unavailing 
tears over the pale blossom, as it lay, crushed and 
faded, at the grave's mouth ! Well is it then for 
the bereaved mother's peace of mind if she can, in 
the review of the brief years dui-ing which the gifted 
one was lent to her, comfort herself with the thought 
that she strove, in patient, far-seeing love, to repress, 
rather than stimulate, the unhealthy growth of intel- 
lectual powers that were in danger of outstripping 
physical vigor ; that she rose superior to the vulgar 
ambition to have her child excel all others of his age 
in scholarship and showy accomplishments. Ah ! it 
is not until the golden locks are hidden by the green 
sod, and the busy brain forever still, that, recalling 
the deep sayings and vivid thought-flashes that made 
us look upon our noble boy with such triumphant 
affection, we measure the short mound with tear- 
bhnded eyes, and say : " We should have known, 
from the first, that all our bright dreams for him 
were to suffer rude, terrible awakening here! When 
we should have looked for the blade only, the bud 



78 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

appeared and the flowers. The fruit could only ripen 
in heaven !" 

Do not seek to make of your children monstrous, 
uncomely, infant phenomena. If, by some special inter- 
position of preserving mercy, their lives and health 
do not faU a sacrifice to your weak vanity, you wiU 
discover, when your prodigy has completed his coui'se 
of book-study, that he is not one whit better fitted 
for the actual fight with life and labor than is the 
fellow-student who used to run wild, with torn hat, 
trousers out at the knees, rough fists, chapped by wind 
and weather, and pockets frightfully distended by a 
miscellaneous collection of unripe apples, jack-stones, 
peanuts, top-cord, "tafifey," whistles, gingerbread, pocket- 
knife, hard-boiled eggs, iron nails, of assorted sizes, 
and, perhaps, a living specimen or two, in the shape 
of a spotted terrapin or a June-bug, with a string 
tied to its leg ; the while your Pindar Augustus, in 
white linen pants and cheeks to match, sat in learned 
abstraction from aU mean and common things, his 
spine curved, and his baby-brows knit over his Homer 
or EucUd. It is distressing, yet instructive, to see 
how the miU of every-day life grinds down college 
geniuses into very ordinary men ; how the oft-quoted 
logic of events proves the "bright particular star" of 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 79 

the family circle and the school-room to be, after tiU, 
a luminary of, at best, the fourth or fifth magnitude. 
You gain nothing except mortification and disappoint- 
ment, by cheating your wonderful scion out of his 
childhood. 

I am afraid that most of us, even those who have 
not fallen into the gravely absurd error just .referred 
to, are yet apt to expect too much of our bairns. 
They may be marvels of sweetness, and sprightliness, 
and filial devotion, but they are only babies after all. 
" Children should be seen — not heard !" is often re- 
peated by us in thoughtlessness or ignorance of the 
real character of the maxim. It is illiberal and cruel, 
and belongs to the age when a father held almost 
unlimited power over the very Hfe of his child ; when 
the younger members of the household never dared 
to sit down in the presence of their parents, without 
their express and gracious permission. I agree that 
a pert, loud-tongued child is an offence, at all times, 
but do not let us, on this account, condemn to silence 
the bird-like voices that make sweetest music in our 
hearts and homes. Even birds sing sometimes when 
we would rather they should refrain ; so let us be 
forbearing with the clamor of the babies. Do not 



80 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

pretend to judge them by the rules you would apply 
to grown people. 

" Father !" says a bright-eyed boy, as his parent 
enters the house at evening, " did you remember to 
get me the ball you promised ?" 

"I did not, Tom. You shall certainly have it to- 
morrow.'' 

Tom goes off, in apparent content. In reality, he 
is sorely disappointed ; but he is a good child, and 
does not wish to make his father unhappy. The 
promise for to-morrow helps him to bear the trial 
tolerably well. The nest evening, he is more back- 
ward about asking. He hangs around his parent's 
chair for some time, in hopeful suspense, but as the 
longed-for plaything does not appear, he ventures 
timidly upon a diplomatic " feeler " — 

" Father, maybe you' ve forgot your promise, 
again ?" 

The father has had a harassing day — filled with 
carking care — and the smouldering temper needs but 
a spark to influence it. 

"Boy!" he says, hastily, "if you ever say 'ball' 
to me again, you shall not have it at all ! I will 
not be teased out of my life about your jimcracks !" 

Tom shrinks back, as if he had been struck in the 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 81 

face ; creeps silently off to liis little room, and there, 
in solitude, cries as if his heart would break. He has 
had a blow. It is not so much the loss of the toy, 
but his is a sensitive nature, and his father's words 
were sharp swords. He meant to be very good, very 
patient. Nothing was further from his thoughts than 
to annoy his usually kind parent. Minghng with, 
and embittering his giief, is a burning sense of in- 
justice. He knows that the injury was undeserved. 

" Father wouldn't have talked so to a grown man ! 
It's just because I'm a poor little boy, and can't help 
myself !" 

I fear there is too much truth in this shrewd con- 
clusion of Tom's. We would not dare insult those 
of our own age, as we do our children. 

" That boy is growing sulky !" growls the father. 
"Did you see how glum he looked because I forgot 
a paltry plaything ? I must take him in hand !" 

Then is the time for you, the mother of the wronged 
child, to speak up boldly in his behalf. Represent 
kindly, but candidly, to your irritated lord, the true 
value of the promised gift to the boy, and the great- 
ness of the disappointment. 

" And after all. Papa, we can not expect Tom to 
exercise much self-control or self-denial yet. Remem- 



82 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHEKS. 

ber, he is just five years old, and babies will be babies, 
you know !" 

If be is the husband so good a wife and mother 
deserves to have, he wiU not only acknowledge his 
fault to you, but seek out little Tom in his lonely 
chamber, and with a fond kiss tell him that " Papa 
spoke shortly awhile ago, because he was very tired and 
had had a gi-eat deal to trouble him to-day, but that 
he will surely remember to bring him a famous great 
ball to-morrow night." 

There are times and circumstances in which it is 
very hard to remember that "babies will be babies." 
Bessy, and Kitty, and Freddy are playing in the nurs- 
ery adjoining your bedroom, where you lie in the 
agonies of " one of your headaches." Every not-very- 
strong mother knows just what that means. You 
have told the little ones that you are in great pain, 
and having provided them with books, blocks, slates, 
and the like " sitting-still plays," as Bessie calls them, 
and begging them to try and be quiet for half an 
hour, have withdrawn to your darkened retreat. They 
are loving, well-meaning children, and, for almost ten 
minutes, there is a refreshing season of calm. You 
are just forgetting torture in a soothing slumber, 
when, thump ! bang ! down comes the castle, the 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 83 

erection of wHch has kept Freddy still thus long. 
He would not be a boy if he did not hurrah at the 
crash ; the girls laugh and clap their hands ; and 
uproar is shortly the order of the hour. Don't spring 
from your bed, and, confronting them with your pale 
face and bloodshot eyes, accuse them of disobedience 
and want of affection for you. They love you very 
dearly, and they "did mean to mind," they will tell 
you penitently, "but they just forgot!" 

It is baby-nature to be forgetful, and I am glad 
that it is. The injuries, and sHghts, and wounded 
feeling of maturer years are enough to make of mem- 
ory a whip of scorpions. I am thankful that, with 
the child, a kiss, a smile, a kind word wiU efface the 
recollection of the hasty reproof, the cross look, or 
— I blush for human nature as illustrated in some 
women while I write it ! — the impatient blow that 
has wrung blood from the tender little heart. Thank 
Heaven that babies have short memories ! so short 
that the suffering of cutting one tooth is clean for- 
gotten before the next saws its jagged edge through 
the swoUen gum. 

Furthermore, keep them babies so long as you can 
without making yourself and them ridiculous, and 
interfering with the graver duty of preparing them 



84 A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

for their place in the working-world. The dew-drop 
must exhale, by and by, but it lingers longest in the 
bosom of the flower that folds its petals most jealously 
and fondly above it. The virgin purity of the snow 
must change, with dust and melting, into the hue 
of the earth beneath ; but it is a woeful sight. We 
would fain delay the process by every means in our 
power. Above all, let us make it our prayer that 
we may never forget that we were once children, and 
how we felt, reasoned, and acted then. 

Who of us does not treasure in her casket of remem- 
brance certain golden days or hours that we would 
not lose for the wealth of a kingdom? Your daughter 
leans against your knee, as my little five-year old 
does on mine, with " Mamma, please tell me a story 
about when you were a little girl ; how glad you 
were when your Papa brought you home a new doU, 
with blue eyes and curling hair, in place of the one 
the dogs tore up ; or about the grand hoHdays you 
used to have in the woods ; or how your Papa once 
took you to slide on the ice-pond — and O, Mamma ! 
do tell me about all the Christmases you ever had!" 

AIL the Christmases I ever had ! I wish I could 
remember them, every one — for those I do recall are 
strung upon my memory like pearls upon a silken 



A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH M,OTHERS. 85 

cord, and each is a joy forever. There is but one 
against which I have set a black cross — the di-ead- 
ful morning when the first thing I drew from my 
stocking was a switch ! I seem to see the Hthe, keen, 
wicked-looking rod now, and hear the shout of laugh- 
ter that greeted its appearance — mirth, that quickly 
subsided before my torrent of gi'ief and shame. I 
was soon told that the obnoxious article was placed 
there "in fun," by a visitor in the family. 

I should like to see the visitor who should dare to 
practice such a piece of " fun " upon one of my 
children ! 

Never deny the babies their Christmas ! It is the 
shining seal set upon a year of happiness. If the 
preparations for it — the deHcious mystery with which 
these are invested; the solemn parade of clean, whole 
stockings in the chimney corner ; or the tree, decked 
in secret, to be revealed in glad pomp upon the 
festal day — if these and many other features of the 
anniversary are tedious or contemptible in your sight, 
you are an object of pity; but do not defraud your 
children of joys which are theii- right, merely because 
you have never tasted them. Let them beheve in 
Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas, or Kriss Kringle, or 
whatever name the jolly Dutch saint bears in your 



Ob A CHRISTMAS TALK WITH MOTHERS. 

region. Some latter-day zealots, more puritanical than 
wise, have felt themselves called upon, in schools, and 
before other juvenile audiences, to deny the claims 
of the patron of merry Christmas to popular love and 
gratitude. Theirs is a thankless office ; both parents 
and children feehng themselves to be aggrieved by 
the gratuitous disclosure, and this is as it should be. 
If it be wicked to encourage such a delusion in infant 
minds, it must be a transgression that leans veiy far 
indeed to virtue's side. 

All honor and love to dear old Santa Glaus ! May 
his stay in our land be long, and his pack grow every 
year more plethoric ! And when, throughout the 
broad earth, he shall find, on Christmas night, an 
entrance into every home, and every heart throbbing 
with joyful gratitude at the return of the blessed day 
that gave the Christ-child to a sinful world, the reign 
of the Prince of Peace shall have begun below ; every- 
where there shall be rendered, "Glory to Grod in the 
highest," and "Good-will to men" shall be the uni- 
versal law — we shaU all have become as little children. 



0. S. WESTCOTT & CO,, 

^rrirters, 

No. 70.Tohn Street, N, Y. 



